The Lynx will be fighting for their season Sunday night in Phoenix. Their head coach will not join them in battle.
Cheryl Reeve was suspended for Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals by the league on Saturday.
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Minnesota’s head coach went berserk in the final minute of Game 3 on Friday after she felt a foul should have been called when Alyssa Thomas swiped the ball from Napheesa Collier and scored what was, effectively, the game-clinching layup on the other end.
Reeve ran out onto the floor and started screaming in the face of the officials. She received her second technical foul and was thus ejected from the game as she was held back by Minnesota staff members.
Reeve then made a number of controversial, expletive-laden comments in a two-minute postgame rant following the loss before exiting the press conference stage.
RELATED: Frederick: Lynx must match Phoenix’s physicality, or their season will end
“We’ve talked about how dangerous it can be. You’re hearing it from the other series, you’re hearing other coaches. You’re hearing (Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon) talk about when you let the physicality happen, people get hurt,” Reeve said. “There’s fights, and this is the look that our league wants for some reason. We were trying to play through it. We tried to make excuses.
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“One of the best players in the league shot zero free throws and she had five fouls. Zero free throws. Got her shoulder pulled out and finished the game with her leg being taken out and probably has a fracture. And so, if this is what our league wants, OK, but I want to call for a change of leadership at the league level when it comes to officiating. It’s bad for the game.
“The officiating crew that we had tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semifinals playoff worthy is (expletive) malpractice.
“I can take an L with the best of them. I don’t think we should have to play through more than what they did. We got players, Masha’s on the glass and gets (expletive) cracked and there’s no call and all them said, ‘It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t my call, I don’t know, I didn’t see it that way.’ They’re (expletive) awful.”
In the release announcing Reeve’s suspension, the WNBA cited the coach’s “conduct and comments included aggressively pursuing and verbally abusing a game official on the court, failure to leave the court in a timely manner upon her ejection with 21.8 seconds to play in the fourth quarter, inappropriate comments made to fans when exiting the court, and remarks made in a post-game press conference.”
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The WNBA also announced Reeve and Minnesota assistant coaches Eric Thibault and Rebekkah Brunson were all fined — Thibault for his “inappropriate interaction” with an official on the floor, and Brunson for a postgame social media post.
Brunson reposted a video of the end-of-game incident, adding “Yeah this happened! Take out one of the best players in the league because you have no control of the game!”
